Himachal varsity VC accused of producing fake documents for post

Accusing the Vice Chancellor of CSK Agriculture University at Palampur in Himachal Pradesh of producing "fake documents" for the post, BJP MP Shanta Kumar has asked the Governor for an independent probe in the issue.

Dharamsala: Accusing the Vice Chancellor of CSK Agriculture University at Palampur in Himachal Pradesh of producing "fake documents" for the post, BJP MP Shanta Kumar has asked the Governor for an independent probe in the issue.

"Dr Katoch has never written any of the 6 books which he claimed to be an author of and produced this false fact to grab this post," Kumar, an MP from Kangra constituency said.

"It is a big academic fraud and the Chief Minister is also a party in it as he (CM) is one of the appointing authorities to this post," he alleged.

We have asked Governor Urmila Singh for an independent inquiry in this regard and Dr K K Katoch should be sent on leave till the charges against him are investigated upon, he said.

The BJP MP also called for a "revival" of rules pertaining to the appointment of Vice Chancellors in the different universities of the country.

Himanshu Mishra, an advocate of Palampur, had last month, in his complaint addressed the Prime Minister on the issue.

The advocate had complained that Katoch submitted a wrong bio-data before then Chancellor Urmila Singh, while applying for the post of VC in 2013 but no action was taken.

In his complaint Mishra said that Katoch in his bio-data at serial number 17 to 24 had claimed that he had authored articles in the journals of Indian Society for Soil Sciences in 1983 and a book 'Kheti of ICAR' in 1984, 1985 and 1986, but these articles never appeared in these journals.

Dr Katoch also claimed to have written eight books, whereas in six books, he was just a patron, he was neither the author nor a publisher, the complaint said.

The advocate approached the Prime Minister who forwarded his complaint to the Principal Secretary, Home who asked the DGP Himachal Pradesh to conduct fair and impartial inquiry.

Kumar mentioned he had collected the entire information under the Right to Information Act.